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I have an Edirol R-4


Martin Yernazian

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I been using an edirol R-4

http://www.edirol.com/index.php?option=com...&Itemid=390

 

and I want to make sure that it will be ok, to sync later to my Super 16 24fps camera ( yes yes is crystal sync)

 

I have knowledge on sound but not as much on the speed of that I need to have with film to transfer later on and do teh sync

 

 

I hope this makes sense....

 

Best

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You should be set, as the digital audio runs at perfect 44.1khz 48khz or 96khz on this device.

 

Typically DV/HD footage has sound running at 16 bit - 48khz (not 44.1 like CD) if you record at 48khz you won't have to dither/up-sample the sound.

 

If you record in 96khz (1/2 of 48khz, which is real easy to downsample back) your quality will increase, but at a cost of storage.

 

If your environment is pretty quiet, I would advise to record in 24bit/48khz for storage reasons.

 

Crystal Sync works on the same HZ principle so you should not have major problems. Only time you would is if your post house decides to sync-sound to your footage at a different framerate than you've shot it in.

 

I would also disable the on-board limiter if you have a good boom guy, and the loudest part of the dialogue should not go above -6dbv at 24 bit.

Edited by Dennis Kisilyov
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I think 48K is a must for sync.

 

I am wondering if you would get some drift in sync over time as your transferred footage would be effectively at 29.97 right?

 

I am really not sure because I have never used that recorder for production sound, but in my experience that thing introduces a lot of electronic noise and it has a really terrible preamp. If you hook it up to a mixer you can make the signal louder to compensate for the preamp, but it is hard to get rid of the noise.

 

The USB hookup is great though.

Edited by Patrick McGowan
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Actually the Edirol has an amazing audio quality, my friend recorded an album of nature, he discover that trees around a river could transduce the sound of the river itself.... he is getting it done and realse through a major level...

trust me if I choose the Edirol for a reason, if not I wouldn't bodered to post anything here

 

The main thing is that I want it to know 24fps= 48k? or it 60k?

 

Best

 

I am really not sure because I have never used that recorder for production sound, but in my experience that thing introduces a lot of electronic noise and it has a really terrible preamp. If you hook it up to a mixer you can make the signal louder to compensate for the preamp, but it is hard to get rid of the noise.

 

The USB hookup is great though.

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Ot's ok.. sorry if I came a little harsh, I know you didn't mean anything wrong my apoligies to and thanks for the advice

 

Best

 

Wow, ok sorry. I wasn't questioning you I just don't like the recorder.

 

my apologies.

It does have a lesser quality preamp, that is not my opinion.

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Martin,

 

You should be fine,

 

Your recorder can only do the following speeds.

 

44.1

48

88.2

96

 

or mutiples there-of. Like 22 or 24khz

 

Two base Kilo Hertz speeds are 44.1 (CD) 48 (DVD/DV) in a typical edit/post environment you'll be using 48k for video, 44.1 is also "insufficient" for cleaning up ambient noise as CD audio 16/44.1khz was the bare minimum for finished albums.

 

If you double 48khz speed you get 96khz - if you double 44.1 you'll get 88.2. If you're finishing to CD Audio it's better to record at twice the resolution at 88.2, if finishing to DVD/Digital Video 96khz.... You can also record at 48khz.

 

Camera sync in the states runs at 60HZ not 60Khz. (Or a multiple/divisible of 60hz - the crystal in the crystal sync unit actually runs 5 to 20 times faster and than a divisor is used for 24fps speed computations.)

 

Same with digital audio.

 

Now you may experience small amounts of drift as the crystals in both units are different. Crystals change their performance based on kind, temperature, etc.. Also how much division or multiplication of the crystal speed is done in electronics.

 

The only way to get everything into 100 perfect sync is use a timecode generator on both camera crystal sync and the recorder.

 

If your scenes are not going to be longer than say.... 10 minutes per take, this drift is 100 negligible.

 

The only time you can introduce speed drift is when your footage is _slown down_ to 23.97 for telecine, while audio is still played at the same speed.

 

So if you run at 24bit/48khz you should be 100% fine with a Clap/Slate at each take in the beginning or the end.

 

 

Now about matching "crystal clock speed" in your crystal sync unit and your digital recorder just to be 100% sure.

 

Some digital audio recorders alow you to get "sync" which they call a "word-clock" or "clock" from an external source such as SPDIF/AES/EBU connectors. Or even a separate "clock/word-clock" input.

 

This would mean that the digital recorder will not use it's own internal "clock/crystal" but borrow the other units clock. Typically this is done during digital audio transfer. But if your crystal sync unit can furnish your recorder a "clock-source" that you will have "zero clock drift".

 

But once again the speed of these crystals is so high 96 thousand clicks per second, that the drift between the two crystals should be negligible for scenes that don't run for hours.

 

 

 

 

 

Connecting clock on a digital recorder can introduce problems also, it can create digital drop-outs if the clock-source is ever lost. Sort of like, tape stopping and starting again during a take... So I would not go through a complicated setup like that.

 

Plus if you are doing 20 minute takes, you can remove the silent parts as speed drift over 20 minutes would be like 0.005 of a second + or -.

Edited by Dennis Kisilyov
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  • 4 years later...

Martin,

 

You should be fine,

 

Your recorder can only do the following speeds.

 

44.1

48

88.2

96

 

or mutiples there-of. Like 22 or 24khz

 

Two base Kilo Hertz speeds are 44.1 (CD) 48 (DVD/DV) in a typical edit/post environment you'll be using 48k for video, 44.1 is also "insufficient" for cleaning up ambient noise as CD audio 16/44.1khz was the bare minimum for finished albums.

 

If you double 48khz speed you get 96khz - if you double 44.1 you'll get 88.2. If you're finishing to CD Audio it's better to record at twice the resolution at 88.2, if finishing to DVD/Digital Video 96khz.... You can also record at 48khz.

 

Camera sync in the states runs at 60HZ not 60Khz. (Or a multiple/divisible of 60hz - the crystal in the crystal sync unit actually runs 5 to 20 times faster and than a divisor is used for 24fps speed computations.)

 

Same with digital audio.

 

Now you may experience small amounts of drift as the crystals in both units are different. Crystals change their performance based on kind, temperature, etc.. Also how much division or multiplication of the crystal speed is done in electronics.

 

The only way to get everything into 100 perfect sync is use a timecode generator on both camera crystal sync and the recorder.

 

If your scenes are not going to be longer than say.... 10 minutes per take, this drift is 100 negligible.

 

The only time you can introduce speed drift is when your footage is _slown down_ to 23.97 for telecine, while audio is still played at the same speed.

 

So if you run at 24bit/48khz you should be 100% fine with a Clap/Slate at each take in the beginning or the end.

 

 

Now about matching "crystal clock speed" in your crystal sync unit and your digital recorder just to be 100% sure.

 

Some digital audio recorders alow you to get "sync" which they call a "word-clock" or "clock" from an external source such as SPDIF/AES/EBU connectors. Or even a separate "clock/word-clock" input.

 

This would mean that the digital recorder will not use it's own internal "clock/crystal" but borrow the other units clock. Typically this is done during digital audio transfer. But if your crystal sync unit can furnish your recorder a "clock-source" that you will have "zero clock drift".

 

But once again the speed of these crystals is so high 96 thousand clicks per second, that the drift between the two crystals should be negligible for scenes that don't run for hours.

 

 

 

 

 

Connecting clock on a digital recorder can introduce problems also, it can create digital drop-outs if the clock-source is ever lost. Sort of like, tape stopping and starting again during a take... So I would not go through a complicated setup like that.

 

Plus if you are doing 20 minute takes, you can remove the silent parts as speed drift over 20 minutes would be like 0.005 of a second + or -.

 

 

Hi all.

 

I'm about to buy a field recorder, and thought about the Edirol R-4 Pro. I will be using a Bolex Ultra 16mm and lovely prime lenses.

As the quality film will be great, I believe it worths to invest on great sound quality.

I tohught about the Fostex FR2 as well, it's said superior to the Edirol R-4... But between the two, wjhat you advise?

 

Thanks,

F

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  • 2 weeks later...

I use an R4Pro and it is an excellent field recorder. I'm sorry but I'm not really familiar with the Fostex. Here are my observations (pros and cons) on the Edirol:

 

SMPTE Timecode in/out - can feed a camera capable of recording sound or be fed by a digital slate. Very flexible frame rate settings. I have on a few occasions connected the R4Pro to my backup recorder(Tascam HD-P2) via BNC cable for six sync tracks.

 

Useful front panel controls for setting trim and riding gain levels in real time.

 

Digital in/out XLR connectors - you can use this with a digital mixer without going through the DA convertors.

 

It has one of those little slots to attach a cable lock (like for a laptop computer) so when you take a break in shooting, you can leave it locked to something and not worry too much about it disappearing.

 

It has a simple built-in waveform editor and effects processor. This is very useful for ENG-style editing in the field - when you have such a tight deadline you don't have time to bring back and edit in a DAW. You can edit and process and then dump your files to a USB stick and then hand it to the producer in the field.

 

Reasonably quiet mic preamps (some have their recorders customized via Oade Brothers) - I didn't feel the need to have them worked on for dialogue recording (as opposed to music recording). The stock preamps seem decent enough.

 

80 gigabyte hard drive built in. For a typical multi-microphone shoot at 24bit x 48kHz this thing can record two long days of shooting in the field without uploading. And you can save your audio files in then field to a USB memory stick.

 

Hope this helps a little.

 

Can only record to 48khz when recording more than two channels. But you can record stereo up to 192kHz. Always want to record at least two tracks even with just a boom (one safety track with limiter on and gain set lower). I've only used it for recording music (live band with a feed from their house mixer) with decent results.

 

Tech support: very good. I actually got to communicate with an engineer type person right here in the states - for free! He was very helpful regarding some questions/problems I was having and even looked over and tested out the machine without charging me (turns out I had the wrong setting).

 

I do wish it had a QWERTY keyboard input for data entry like my Tascam. The method of pressing buttons and spinning the scrub wheel is a bit clumsy for naming takes and changing settings, etc.

Edited by Rob Gordon
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